PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS. LXI 



of view of technology and social organization. His results, pivb- 

 lished by the Queensland Government under the title of Ethno- 

 logical Studies among the North-West-Central Queerisland Abori- 

 gines, and later in the Records of the Australian Museum, are of 

 great value. The Cambridge expedition to the Torres Strait 

 Islands, in 1898, under the leadership of Dr. Haddon, resulted 

 in the publication of what is probably the most complete account 

 that it is now possible to secure of the culture of these mixed 

 peoples. From Queensland, also, Mrs. Langloh Parker published 

 two volumes of Legendary Tales, and, later on, The Euahlayi 

 Tribe; and the E,ev. J. Mathew, Eaglehaivk and Crow and Two 

 Representative Tribes of Queensland. The report of the Horn 

 Expedition contains a short account of certain features of the 

 Arunta Tribe, partly gained during a hurried visit by the late 

 Sir Edward Stirling, and partly drawn up from notes supplied 

 to him by Mr. Gillen. At a later date it was my good fortune to 

 be lahle to collaiborate with Mr. Gillen in the investigation of prac- 

 tically uncontaminated tribes in Central and North-central Aus- 

 tralia working in the field, living with the natives and watching 

 their ordinary and ceremonial life under the most favorable con- 

 ditions. By the death of Mr. Gillen, who presided over the section 

 of Anthropology at our Melbourne meeting, in .1900, we have- 

 lost a most able and enthusiastic field worker amongst the natives, 

 whom he knew well and understood, and to whom every student 

 of Australian anthropology and mjself, most of all, owes a deep 

 debt of gratitude. At a later period, the Rev. C. Strehlow pub- 

 lished further work dealing with the Arunta and Luritja tribes 

 in Central Australia, and I was able a few years ago to study the 

 natives of the far iN'orthern Territory and of Bathurst and 

 Melville Islands, amongst whom, as also in Central Australia, Dr. 

 H. Basedow has done valuable work. 



Until recently, though some of our earliest knowledge came from 

 Western Australia, we have gained thence no further information. 

 The work, however, published during the past few years by Mrs. 

 Bates and Mr. A. li. Brown, though unfortunately conducted 

 amongst tribes Avho, as the authors say, have long since abandoned 

 the performance of old customs, is of considerable value, more 

 especially because it reveals the presence of tribes in Western Aus- 

 tralia closely akin in their organization and beliefs to those of 

 Central Australia. 



I have only in this brief account mentioned what I think are 

 the main records in regard to Australian aboriginals from vhe 

 cultural point of view. Apart from compilations, such as those 

 of Brough Smyth and Curr, numberless other smaller contrihu- 

 tions have been made, most of them of trivial value, and often 



